The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield.British Geological Survey 2007 Bedrock geology: UK South 1:625,000 scale geological map, BGS, Keyworth, Notts Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago.
The Romans may have been the first to use coal in Lancashire and its shallow seams and outcrops were exploited on a small scale from the Middle Ages and extensively after the start of the Industrial Revolution. The coalfield was at the forefront of innovation in coal mining, prompting the country's first canals, use of steam engines and creating conditions favourable for rapid industrialisation.
The pits on the coalfield were at their most productive in 1907 when more than 26 million tons of coal were produced. By 1967 just 21 collieries remained. Parkside Colliery in Newton-le-Willows, St. Helens area, the last deep mine to be sunk on the coalfield, was closed in 1993.
Geology The geology of the coalfield consists of the coal seams of the Upper, Middle and Lower Coal Measures, layers of sandstones, shales and coal of varying thickness, which were laid down in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago. The coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests. The coal in Lancashire is bituminous, with 30–40% volatile matter varying in hardness from seam to seam.
The coal measures were subsequently subjected to folding; this accounts for the dip towards the south and west; faulting occurred at that time. The Coal Measures are over 1200 metres (4000 ft)) thick, and coal accounts for about 4% of their thickness. The coalfield is crossed by several major faults, which generally run in a north and south direction. The most significant easterly fault described by Edward Hull throws the strata down to the east. It was worked from Fairbottom in Ashton-under-Lyne across the River Medlock to Oldham and onwards to the west of Rochdale. The Red Rock Fault skirts the north-west extremity of the North Staffordshire coalfield towards Macclesfield and Poynton Colliery in Cheshire. The Irwell Valley or Pendleton Fault passes Clifton and Kearsley, where it throws the coal measures down to the north-east. It has a throw of 3000 feet (900 metres) and the area is still geologically active and subject to earth tremors. A fault with a large horizontal but small vertical throw is found at Tyldesley. In the deep mines at the southern edge of the coalfield, the Plodder mine in Leigh and the Arley mine in Tyldesley were hot: the miners worked in temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 °C).
Five substantial faults affect the Wigan Coalfield; they run nearly parallel to and equidistant from each other. The Great Haigh Fault begins near Bickershaw Colliery and passes northward through Hindley, Kirkless Hall, Haigh, and Arley to the west of Adlington Park. The Great Standish or St Catherine's Fault has a downthrow to the east and passes under St Catherine's Church at Ince. The Giant's Hall Fault passes by Abram, west of Ince Hall Colliery, west of Gidlow and under Giant's Hall Farm to Standish Church. The Great Shevington Fault passes by Hawkley Hall and east of Kirkless Hall. The Great Pemberton Fault is a downthrow and passes Pemberton, Orrell and to the west of Shevington. Further west are the Great Upholland Fault, the Lathom Fault the Great Boundary Fault stretching from Bickerstaffe to about two miles (3.2 km) east of Ormskirk.
Geography The coalfield on the western side of the Pennines is divided into two parts separated by the Rossendale anticline. To the north-east is the Burnley Coalfield and to the south is the much larger South Lancashire Coalfield which comprises, from west to east, the St Helens, Wigan, Manchester, and Oldham Coalfields. The Oldham Coalfield extends to the south and becomes the Cheshire Coalfield. The coalfield covers around extending from Stalybridge in the southeast to Ormskirk in the northwest and from Rainhill in the southwest to beyond Burnley in the northeast. The south eastern part extends well into neighbouring Cheshire where significant mining took place around Poynton and Dukinfield. The area of the coalfield became heavily industrialised as new industries developed, attracted by the availability of fuel. A small area around Todmorden in West Yorkshire is geologically part of the coalfield. The redrawing of administrative county boundaries in 1974 resulted in almost all the South Lancashire Coalfield lying outside the modern-day boundaries of Lancashire. A quite separate and much smaller coalfield is situated in the Wenning valley in the northeast of the county but is referred to as a part of the Ingleton Coalfield, the main part of which is in North Yorkshire.
History It is possible that the Romans were the first to use coal in Lancashire, but the earliest written record of "minera" was made in 1246 when Adam de Radcliffe stole coal belonging to Adam son of Alexander. Small amounts of coal were dug during the Middle Ages, but wood was plentiful and turf was preferred to coal which was inferior in quality. It was however used for lime burning and by smiths. Coal was got in Shakerley in 1429 when a dispute over the stealing of "seacoals" was recorded, and in 1521 there is a record of coal mines in Whiston. Most pits were very small and shallow, and Wigan and its neighbourhood were noted for having numerous cannel pits which families could access from under their property. John Leland visited Haigh in 1538 and observed that "Mr Bradshaw ... hath founde moche Canel like Se coal in his grounde very profitable to him." Mining was not a full-time occupation: frequently the work was seasonal and combined with other occupations such as farming or weaving.
During the Elizabethan era there were pits throughout the coalfield, and mines were recorded at Haslingden, Padiham, Ightenhill and Trawden. Over 50 small collieries operated around Rochdale where coal was got from small pits from the 1580s at Falinge, Cronkeyshaw and near Littleborough. Landowners entered into disputes with their tenants and neighbours, some of which were violent. Shallow pits at Bradford, a little over a mile from Manchester town centre, produced enough coal for the town in the early 1600s.
Different areas of the coalfield expanded and contracted at different times. The Wigan area, with coal relatively close to the surface, was important by the 18th century, fuelling the brass and pewter industries; and after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, cotton and heavy engineering. The coalfield around St Helens developed from the mid-18th century supplying the copper, glass and chemical industries that developed close to the Sankey Canal.
In the 1770s records show that there were pits in Wigan, Bolton, Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne and Dukinfield. From the 16th and 17th centuries some landowners began to develop the industry, and several dynasties of coalowners emerged. These included the Bradshaws and subsequently the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres of Haigh Hall, the Hultons of Hulton Park, the Fletchers, the Knowles and the Duke of Bridgewater and his successors the Bridgewater Trustees. More companies emerged during the 19th century and included Richard Evans and Company of Haydock, which originated in 1830. Pearson and Knowles Coal and Iron Company was formed in 1874 in Ince. Colonel John Hargreaves began a company with pits in Burnley, and George Hargreaves owned pits in Accrington and Rossendale Valley. James Lees' Chamber Colliery Company owned pits in Oldham.
Drainage In 1600 the collieries were drifts where coal outcropped, and shallow bell or ladder pits where roof falls were common and poor drainage led to them being abandoned. As a solution to water in his coal pits, Roger Bradshaw dug the Great Haigh Sough between 1653 and 1670. It was a long tunnel under his Haigh Hall estate which drained the pits into a nearby stream and was still in use until 1929. Other soughs were dug, including one in 1729 to drain the Worsley mines and another from Standish Colliery to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Crooke. A waterwheel was used from 1720 to lift water from the workings of the Plumbe Street Mine in Burnley using an endless chain of buckets, and James Brindley installed one at the Wet Earth Colliery in the Irwell Valley.
The invention of steam engines, first in 1698 by Thomas Savery and then in 1711 by Thomas Newcomen, provided an alternative method of draining wet mines and winding men and coal from deeper mines. A Newcomen atmospheric engine was installed at Bardsley Colliery in Ashton-under-Lyne in about 1760. It was known as Fairbottom Bobs and is preserved in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
Transport
Transport of coal was difficult; roads were poor and carting heavy loads made them worse. In 1720 the River Douglas near Wigan and the rivers Irwell and Mersey were made navigable, providing a more efficient and cheaper method of transporting coal. The Sankey Canal was built in 1755 and by 1760 Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater was constructing the Bridgewater Canal, providing a direct link from his mines, the Worsley Navigable Levels, into Manchester. This encouraged the development of more canals, including the Leeds and Liverpool and Manchester Bolton & Bury Canals.
William Hulton was a supporter of the Bolton and Leigh Railway, Lancashire's first public railway, opened in 1828 to carry coal and cotton. The railway passed to the west of his Hulton estate and gave his pits at Chequerbent access to the new means of transport. In the following 20 years the main lines of the railway system were constructed, linking the increasingly industrial towns in Lancashire with the rest of the country. Access to transport, the steam engine, the development of the textile industry with raw cotton imported through the Port of Liverpool and associated industries as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace. This led to increased demand for coal and larger, deeper mines.
Ventilation
Providing fresh air and removing firedamp from pits with a single shaft was a problem as explosive gases accumulated. An early solution was to send a collier or fireman, swathed in wet rags and armed with a long pole with a lighted candle, into the workings to explode any accumulated gases before work began; this did not always work. At Haigh in 1688 it was recorded that "the fiery damp went off twice, but did little hurt". A system of coursed air circulation in the workings was introduced in the 1760s using walls and doors, leading to the employment of "trappers", children as young as six or seven, working in darkness, who opened and closed the doors.
The air flow was improved by braziers or fire baskets suspended in the shaft, and by the late 1700s underground furnaces, in combination with stoppings and doors. These methods were not without danger from fires or explosions.
Conditions